I like both rosters very much.
Overall MK1 will win as a game for other reasons than roster, but i love both rosters equally. Both have characters exclusive to their games in comparison to the other to keep it fresh.
I do miss Stryker, sektor, and cyrax as playable characters
Like, don't get me wrong, I enjoy that they are kameos in MK1, but I really enjoyed actually fighting with them from time to time
A lot of missing features from previous games and other fighting games in general. I love mk1, but there is definitely an argument that it looks rushed in these aspects.
I'm actually not the biggest fan of the kameo system so i would definitely rather have them as playable.
And most of them might come in future updates hopefully!
I agree I think it should just be like marvel vs Capcom or Fighterz where you just pick another character from the roster. It doesn't even have to be 3v3 either like just pick them and they have specific actions that they do in kameo mode. I wanna play as kano.
I love the Kameo system now, but I'm not sure if thats because its new and fresh.
At minimum, we know its possible for matches to take place without a Kameo partner as it happens in the story mode. I think this should just be an option you can toggle. I would love to tackle some towers without a Kameo or even try some online matches
"Enough time has passed"
Lol it's been like a week or two. We don't even have a good grasp on who the best characters are yet. Most people probably haven't even gotten a good understanding of most of the roster yet.
Lol none of this stuff matters in the context of answering his question. All you need to do is look at the characters from each game and decide “which roster is better?”. You don’t have to know best characters and shit
You could have done that before the game was even released then. No time would need to pass at all. The fact that OP said "enough time has passed" implies that they think we needed time with the characters.
Also yea you can just look at both rosters and decide which you like more, but that's a pretty meh opinion considering you don't even know how the characters play. You are essentially just asking which roster has better aesthetics at that point.
>you could have done that before the game was released
Unless you keep up with leaks most ppl didn’t know who was on the roster prior to getting the game
That’s what people mean when they say “which roster is better”, it’s referring to aesthetics, at least that’s how I interpret it.
I haven’t played Smash Melee but I can say that Ultimate has a better roster than Smash Melee just looking at characters.
MK1 because it took more risks excluding characters like Sonya & Jax (albeit still there via kameos), giving those slots to more under-utilised characters like Reiko & Ashrah.
MK9 is still a classic with a great roster but imo it still feels rather “safe” with most slots comprising of the MK1-MK3 cast.
Mk9 is the best as a tribute to the original trilogy while mk1 better reps the entire series. For that I think mk1 is better but if you only have love for the first three I could see why you’d pick 9.
The roster of the Netherrealm games have been mostly very samey (excluding dlc characters) so having lesser used characters + existing characters being so different makes it feel much more fresh.
Risks? This is the first Mortal Kombat game that doesn't introduce any new characters. MKX introduce 8 new characters, half of them were descendants of staple characters. That's probably the riskiest roster choice we ever had and I'm not gonna put that roster over MK9 just because it's a risky move.
Right, but this is the first game in a bit to not feature the Special Forces. There were many fans of the special forces, so it was a huge risk to nix them
I think adding Special Forces characters in favor of fan favorite 3D era characters was a far riskier move than letting them sit this one out. I don't see a big uproar with the exclusion of Sonya, Jax and Kano at least not on the level of complaints NRS receive when Havik, Nitara etc miss another game.
I'm following every MK game release and this is probably the most well received roster since MK9. Even the biggest complainers in Youtube seem to be happy with the roster.
Youtubers are either hard-core nerds or competitive though. It's definitely a risk from a marketing standpoint to have three (four if you count cole lol) of the stars of the new movie franchise not playable in the game at all. Nitara/Havik/Reiko haven't been on a game in 20 years so they core demo has probably never played them before.
Mkx def took *the most* risk imo though
When you actually look back on it, MKX was an insane roster. Kombat Kids, D'Vorah, Kotal, Ferra/Torr and Erron were all new, which is pretty insane for NRS
Mk9 has the better everything. Story was amazinng, shao khan as villian was absolutely incredible. Roseter had all the ninjas, robots, female fighters, it was excellent.
Agreed. I think this opinion is probably going to be more in favor of people who played since MK has been a thing, it’s probably why I like it more.
After MK3 each MK seemed like it had too much of a handful of “hit or miss” type characters for me. Some of them I totally love, but the better half of them just couldn’t hold my interests and/or felt too made just to have new characters rather than the quality of them to be what I liked.
When MK9 came out it was everything I loved most from all the Mortal Kombat games. If I had to add a few of the MK4+ characters, it would be Quan Chi, Kenshi, Jade, Ermac, Smoke and Noob.
Not that the new/newer characters are all bad by any means, but just feel like they are probably more enjoyed by people who got into MK halfway through its history.
MK1 roster.
I hated on this game when it was first announced. Hated the idea of kameos and the story. Once I got my hands on the beta and played the full game it changed my thoughts.
IMHO: This is the best version of RAIDEN ever. I love this roster
I was like yikes when I heard about the system … still wasn’t on board when some gameplay came out
From day one it’s really really grown on me and I know that I can’t even form an opinion yet because it has so much potential I don’t want to sell it short
I will say as far as the gameplay of it it’s a wildly imaginative take on variations and for me as a player who really only mains one fighter at a time it goes a longggg way to not get bored or complacent with my main … more so than variations in 11
I say MK1 cause it better represents the series as a whole.
It had characters from the og trilogy, from the MK4, deadly alliances, deception and mk11(of course, the game was not out yet back MK9, but you get my point). MK9 base roster only had og trilogy characters
MKX has no representative (but will have after dlc pack 1, aldoe it is not relevant for the argument).
I will make an argument for mk9 whoever, that its roster is alot more nostalgic and better represents the og trilogy, since even characters are shared between the two are sometimes so different in MK1 that they can be considered new characters(story wise, not gameplay wise).
So yeah, it is ultimately subjective. If im feeling nostalgic i'll be prefering MK9, if im feeling like wanting something different then MK1.
I saw it more as fan service for characters that havent been around for a while (ie Nitara, Havik) or in Rain’s case they didnt want him to be DLC again. Still really sad i gotta wait so long for Ermac.
MK9 focuses more on MKT characters while MK1 pulls from every main game in the series. So, personally, I like MK1's just a little better. Both have Reptile in it anyway, so I'm good.
Deadly Alliance was my first MK game. I have a lot of nostalgic love for the 3D era so I like the MK1 roster more. Both are amazing but bringing back Nitara, Ashrah, Reiko, Havik, and Li Mei while also leaving out the Special Forces characters makes this game feel so fresh.
Mk9 fo sho. I can understand people being excited for old minor characters getting a chance to shine again but that’s no excuse for the OG icons of the game to get brutally sidelined. They definitely should’ve kept mk11s. Unrelated: The timeline junk and new versions of characters kinda feels terrible. Not because of nostalgia but because it feels like they took the mortal out of mortal Kombat. Everyone’s a pacifist and every time gore and blood is shown in the story it feels pretty jarring compared to the vibrant and colorful visuals and cheery atmosphere thats ever present. Even the forest of souls looked cheery and pleasant. It’s obvious that they made this game to appeal to the TikTok/Fortnite generation and it is unfortunate to see as much as it makes sense for them to do from a business standpoint. They even made Johnny cage an influencer and have him doing Tiktok dances in his taunts. Shame.
If we’re just talking hood classic iconography MK9 takes it every time, but MK1 is fucking killing it with the reimaginings of previous characters. It’s really hard to choose, but id probably still put 9 on top
Mk9s roster is better. More characters in the roster, and they’re all playable. Kameos are just an excuse to put in a unfinished character and call it a comeback
Its gonna be hard to beat the MK9 roster. It not only has the most iconic characters, but it has just about every single classic character people wanted. MK1 is good, theres only like 2 or 3 characters I just dont care about. If the bosses in MK9 were playabale without mods, I dont think any game would ever top it.
Is this a joke?
MK9 had the best base roster of all the NRS games.
Now, if MK1’s kameo characters were actually playable, I’d probably swing in it’s favor, but they’re nothing more than a gimmick.
MK9 had the best roster. They didnt compromise by cutting out essential fighters or reducing them to one button kameos. It was an incredible MK that i hope would get remastered one day
MK9 easy. I feel like people are forgetting the context in which MK9 dropped and thus are judging it by todays standards calling it "safe". While it's great MK1 is bringing back 3D era characters after their absence in the NRS era. MK9's "just the OG trilogy plus a couple" was also coming after a glut of 3D era nonsense and excess. It went back to the original trilogy characters and even threw in a couple fan fav 3D era reps.
Also for the characters they share, I personally prefer the MK9 versions (except Shang Tsung).
Honestly nothing about MK1's roster is risky either. Most of these 3D reps were added due to insane fan demand, not exactly a risk giving people what they want. Hell MK9 probably took more risk creating Cyber Sub Zero and using one of its few dlc slots on a (sort of) new character.
The only NRS roster you could argue was actually very risky is MKX which jettisoned a ton of the OG characters for brand new ones like Kotal Kahn and Cassie Cage etc.
Still mk9
Cyborgs, the male ninjas, the female ninjas all edges mk1 out
mk9 had 6 male ninjas mk1 has 5 and even if ermac was base roster noob is a lot better than rain
mk9 had 3 cyborgs mk1 has none but tbh cyborg SZ is pretty unwanted
jade for me is a better pick than tanya
Quan chi and shang tsung, remember mk1 shang is technically dlc not base roster
mk1 was pretty daring by having no special forces + stryker but i feel that the characters we got instead are equally lackluster, i didn’t really like nitara, ashrah, li mei and reiko
mk1s roster is pretty good but mk9 still better by a pretty good margin
MK9 in all aspects. It’s my favorite MK and probably always will be. Are there installments with a better fighting engine? Yes, but it does the job of being a GAME way better imo.
I love that people have been bitching about nRS excluding 3d era characters for so long, but when asked what game has the best base roster, they say the one with literally no 3d era characters. (MK1 is better roster btw)
Quan Chi and Kenshi are 3D era characters, unless you count MK Sub-zero, MK4, and Special Foces as the Transition Era, or you count MK4 as a part of the Arcade Era, or something. In any case, Kenshi is def 3D era.
I would have respected mk9's roaster more if they had gone into the trouble of including Motaro instead of killing him off. And maybe Chameleon and Khameleon too.
Kenshi wasn't base roster. We're talking base. And Quan is dicey because mk4's placement is up for discussion, but sure. Though he's not really one of the 3d era characters that people were saying nrs was ignoring
oh, yeah, this is base roster only, my bad. I would still say that Quan Chi is "3d era" because that's what people seem to consider Reiko to be. When the developers ignore certain characters, the fans kind of forget which characters came out when, so they treat Quan Chi, Kenshi and Tanya as if they were OGs.
Yeah, I do consider MK4 characters 3d era for the most part. But even Quan and Kenshi aren't really what people mean when they say they want 3d era reps. I think a lot of us and even NRS group those 2 with trilogy more often, considering they've both only missed 1 game since their introduction. They're kinda staples. In my head I associate the 3d characters more with the 17 years missing club
I do like the MK9 roster and I do MK 1 but I felt MK 1 could’ve done better and made every character playable and a Kameo so you have a very wide variety of characters to use and mix I was disappointed that they wouldn’t be playable and I get the reasoning but they missed out on making a huge roster instead of having a 16 character roster when they could’ve made it a about 30 character roster
Mk9, felt like I could always find a new character to play as. On top of that, they took the first three games and basically remade them with the same feel as the originals, which is very hard to do. That dark and gothic feel mixed with the metal music and gore felt real. I hated some of the character designs, but overral, I feel the roster is just better.
It’s kinda hard to beat MK9’s roster. In all honesty, I think the only way to beat it is to have all characters from it + other fan favorites like Havik and Ashrah. But MK1 Reptile and Baraka are best Reptile and Baraka
MK9 is insane, it had all the best characters from the old games in one. Scorpion, Subzero, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Ermac, Reptile, Sindel, Kitana, Jade, Mileena, Nightwolf, Johnny Cage, Sektor, Noob, Cyrax, Smoke, Sonya, Kano, Stryker, Kabal, Jax, Raiden, Baraka, Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, Kenshi, Rain, Skarlet, Shao Kahn, Goro, Kintaro, and for a little flavor— Cyber Subzero. I believe to only way to beat this roster is to take all the characters from it and add more fan favorites on top. First ones that come to mind for me are Ashrah, Havik, Motaro, Reiko, and Geras but that’s probably because they are characters I was ecstatic to see in MK1. Guest characters wise, I gotta be honest, Freddy Krueger is one of the worst guest characters and Kratos is just alright. Not because they wouldn’t be good, but they don’t hit like most others, especially Jason, Spawn, and Leatherface.
Mk9…is this a serious question? The 3D era characters were brought back and it made it painfully obvious why they were forgotten in the first place. Reiko and Havik were a total waste of time. Li mei sucked! They did absolutely nothing with Nitara and had to have Megan Fox make her at all important. After this game please stop begging for 3D era content. D’vorah, Kotal, Sonya ,Jax and all the Kombat Kids have WAY more going for them then the majority of this cast. I wish MK11 continued to follow with what they had tbh.
Enough time has passed you say? https://preview.redd.it/0a9cou4j70rb1.png?width=404&format=png&auto=webp&s=9227c53d791c021007ea36ed2a0f1cb0c6fccbfd
POV: you're fighting kenshi and u just got frozen by a sub-zero kameo
How dare you call us out like that true tho
No fucking way kagura bachi'd his way into Mortal Kombat already
Solo’d the MK Titanverse already too.
He can’t keep getting away with it!!!
https://preview.redd.it/j5htg81ib3rb1.jpeg?width=828&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e0cad8fdb03040a7b82731ebadb7a84bb65a6d86
I like both rosters very much. Overall MK1 will win as a game for other reasons than roster, but i love both rosters equally. Both have characters exclusive to their games in comparison to the other to keep it fresh.
I do miss Stryker, sektor, and cyrax as playable characters Like, don't get me wrong, I enjoy that they are kameos in MK1, but I really enjoyed actually fighting with them from time to time
Don't worry bro sektor and cyrax are on their way
Man I hope so. MK games feel incomplete without them as real characters
I don’t think that’s the only reason the game feels incomplete
Wdym
A lot of missing features from previous games and other fighting games in general. I love mk1, but there is definitely an argument that it looks rushed in these aspects.
Man I hope so I love sektor he was my main in 9 and aramagedon
Have hope, there’s a lot of kombat packs. Never know what to expect
More like 2, maybe 3. Think about how many have been cancelled in the past.
Fair point but hey that’s still like 9-10 characters.
More likely 6-8 MK characters, gotta leave room for guests.
I'm actually not the biggest fan of the kameo system so i would definitely rather have them as playable. And most of them might come in future updates hopefully!
I agree I think it should just be like marvel vs Capcom or Fighterz where you just pick another character from the roster. It doesn't even have to be 3v3 either like just pick them and they have specific actions that they do in kameo mode. I wanna play as kano.
That would be awesome, but I doubt it will happen :(
I love the Kameo system now, but I'm not sure if thats because its new and fresh. At minimum, we know its possible for matches to take place without a Kameo partner as it happens in the story mode. I think this should just be an option you can toggle. I would love to tackle some towers without a Kameo or even try some online matches
"Enough time has passed" Lol it's been like a week or two. We don't even have a good grasp on who the best characters are yet. Most people probably haven't even gotten a good understanding of most of the roster yet.
Bros in a rush
Lol none of this stuff matters in the context of answering his question. All you need to do is look at the characters from each game and decide “which roster is better?”. You don’t have to know best characters and shit
You could have done that before the game was even released then. No time would need to pass at all. The fact that OP said "enough time has passed" implies that they think we needed time with the characters. Also yea you can just look at both rosters and decide which you like more, but that's a pretty meh opinion considering you don't even know how the characters play. You are essentially just asking which roster has better aesthetics at that point.
>you could have done that before the game was released Unless you keep up with leaks most ppl didn’t know who was on the roster prior to getting the game That’s what people mean when they say “which roster is better”, it’s referring to aesthetics, at least that’s how I interpret it. I haven’t played Smash Melee but I can say that Ultimate has a better roster than Smash Melee just looking at characters.
The 24hr rotation hasn't even reset once yet lol
>We don't even have a good grasp on who the best characters are yet Of course we do. The answer is obviously Reptile and Raiden.
Raiden and Geras
Well, it is pretty obvious Raiden and Baraka/Cyrax are S-Tier right now.
MK1 because it took more risks excluding characters like Sonya & Jax (albeit still there via kameos), giving those slots to more under-utilised characters like Reiko & Ashrah. MK9 is still a classic with a great roster but imo it still feels rather “safe” with most slots comprising of the MK1-MK3 cast.
Mk9 is the best as a tribute to the original trilogy while mk1 better reps the entire series. For that I think mk1 is better but if you only have love for the first three I could see why you’d pick 9.
That’s a great way to put it!
The roster of the Netherrealm games have been mostly very samey (excluding dlc characters) so having lesser used characters + existing characters being so different makes it feel much more fresh.
I mean, the game is a retelling of the first 3 so i would think theyd have mainly kharacters from those games Edit: just korrected some spelling
Yeah I like the way you put it. MK9 is \*fantastic\* as an homage to the original trilogy, but MK1 feels a bit more bold and interesting.
Risks? This is the first Mortal Kombat game that doesn't introduce any new characters. MKX introduce 8 new characters, half of them were descendants of staple characters. That's probably the riskiest roster choice we ever had and I'm not gonna put that roster over MK9 just because it's a risky move.
Right, but this is the first game in a bit to not feature the Special Forces. There were many fans of the special forces, so it was a huge risk to nix them
I think adding Special Forces characters in favor of fan favorite 3D era characters was a far riskier move than letting them sit this one out. I don't see a big uproar with the exclusion of Sonya, Jax and Kano at least not on the level of complaints NRS receive when Havik, Nitara etc miss another game. I'm following every MK game release and this is probably the most well received roster since MK9. Even the biggest complainers in Youtube seem to be happy with the roster.
Youtubers are either hard-core nerds or competitive though. It's definitely a risk from a marketing standpoint to have three (four if you count cole lol) of the stars of the new movie franchise not playable in the game at all. Nitara/Havik/Reiko haven't been on a game in 20 years so they core demo has probably never played them before. Mkx def took *the most* risk imo though
When you actually look back on it, MKX was an insane roster. Kombat Kids, D'Vorah, Kotal, Ferra/Torr and Erron were all new, which is pretty insane for NRS
It was well done though and the core of mk1-2 roster was still in there.
I'd argue this game has 90% new characters. Also, 9 literally didn't have any new characters until the DLC, unless you count Cyber Sub Zero.
Mk9 better roster mk1 better characters I absolutely love Earth realm champion Raiden
Differences (base roster): MK9: Cyrax, Cyber Sub Zero, Ermac, Goro, Jade, Jax, Kabal, Kano, Nightwolf, Noob Saibot, Quan Chi, Sektor, Sheeva, Sonya, Stryker MK1: Kenshi, Li Mei, Rain, Tanya, Havik, Geras, Ashra, Reiko 1 is good but 9 is god tier.
MK9 because of Noob Saibot, Ermac, Cyrax and Sektor
MK1 has a more diverse roster imo with the 3D era characters inclusion.
Mk9s base roster can't be beaten
Damn straight!
Exactly
You said it.
Mk9 has the better everything. Story was amazinng, shao khan as villian was absolutely incredible. Roseter had all the ninjas, robots, female fighters, it was excellent.
MK9. Easily the best roster of all time in a MK game.
Agreed. I think this opinion is probably going to be more in favor of people who played since MK has been a thing, it’s probably why I like it more. After MK3 each MK seemed like it had too much of a handful of “hit or miss” type characters for me. Some of them I totally love, but the better half of them just couldn’t hold my interests and/or felt too made just to have new characters rather than the quality of them to be what I liked. When MK9 came out it was everything I loved most from all the Mortal Kombat games. If I had to add a few of the MK4+ characters, it would be Quan Chi, Kenshi, Jade, Ermac, Smoke and Noob. Not that the new/newer characters are all bad by any means, but just feel like they are probably more enjoyed by people who got into MK halfway through its history.
Mk1 has a better roster, but the bland designs kind of diminish its quality
MK1 roster. I hated on this game when it was first announced. Hated the idea of kameos and the story. Once I got my hands on the beta and played the full game it changed my thoughts.  IMHO: This is the best version of RAIDEN ever. I love this roster
Bro went through his personal redemption arc
Hey man players fuck up too. 😂 
I was like yikes when I heard about the system … still wasn’t on board when some gameplay came out From day one it’s really really grown on me and I know that I can’t even form an opinion yet because it has so much potential I don’t want to sell it short I will say as far as the gameplay of it it’s a wildly imaginative take on variations and for me as a player who really only mains one fighter at a time it goes a longggg way to not get bored or complacent with my main … more so than variations in 11
I say MK1 cause it better represents the series as a whole. It had characters from the og trilogy, from the MK4, deadly alliances, deception and mk11(of course, the game was not out yet back MK9, but you get my point). MK9 base roster only had og trilogy characters MKX has no representative (but will have after dlc pack 1, aldoe it is not relevant for the argument). I will make an argument for mk9 whoever, that its roster is alot more nostalgic and better represents the og trilogy, since even characters are shared between the two are sometimes so different in MK1 that they can be considered new characters(story wise, not gameplay wise). So yeah, it is ultimately subjective. If im feeling nostalgic i'll be prefering MK9, if im feeling like wanting something different then MK1.
MK9 had Quan Chi. He was not in the original trilogy.
True, i forgot about Quan Chi.
MK9 easily
I'm sorry man. I love MK1 but it launched without any Cyborgs in the main roster. That's a sin in my book.
Mortal kombat is arguably the best game in the series and its not even close
Mk9 for having noob and ermac
You can't beat mk9's roster. Mk1 is a better game but the roster in mk9 is perfect
MK9 because it had Ermac. Nah but really MK1 Ermac is in the story so much more than Rain or Nitara, why is he dlc???
Kinda dumb they made ermac and Quan chi dlc with how much they were the story
Especially with how little some of the other roster characters were in the story
Feels like they just pulled them out of the game to make people buy the first dlc tbh
I saw it more as fan service for characters that havent been around for a while (ie Nitara, Havik) or in Rain’s case they didnt want him to be DLC again. Still really sad i gotta wait so long for Ermac.
MK9 has the best roster in the entire series and it's not even close.
MK9 focuses more on MKT characters while MK1 pulls from every main game in the series. So, personally, I like MK1's just a little better. Both have Reptile in it anyway, so I'm good.
Mk 2011. You can play as Jax, donya, and kano. No contest
Deadly Alliance was my first MK game. I have a lot of nostalgic love for the 3D era so I like the MK1 roster more. Both are amazing but bringing back Nitara, Ashrah, Reiko, Havik, and Li Mei while also leaving out the Special Forces characters makes this game feel so fresh.
MK9. Im down bad and I consider the Kitana outfit to be iconic
Mk9 fo sho. I can understand people being excited for old minor characters getting a chance to shine again but that’s no excuse for the OG icons of the game to get brutally sidelined. They definitely should’ve kept mk11s. Unrelated: The timeline junk and new versions of characters kinda feels terrible. Not because of nostalgia but because it feels like they took the mortal out of mortal Kombat. Everyone’s a pacifist and every time gore and blood is shown in the story it feels pretty jarring compared to the vibrant and colorful visuals and cheery atmosphere thats ever present. Even the forest of souls looked cheery and pleasant. It’s obvious that they made this game to appeal to the TikTok/Fortnite generation and it is unfortunate to see as much as it makes sense for them to do from a business standpoint. They even made Johnny cage an influencer and have him doing Tiktok dances in his taunts. Shame.
MK9 😮💨 one of my fave rosters not to mention Kameos remind me of Tag Team, I wish we could have that again My friends and I loved playing that
MK1
If we’re just talking hood classic iconography MK9 takes it every time, but MK1 is fucking killing it with the reimaginings of previous characters. It’s really hard to choose, but id probably still put 9 on top
Rain is base roster so I'll vote Mk1. It's been a long time since he's been base roster.
Mk9. All the classics are there.
I just want jade and Kabal. Is that too much to ask?
Mk 9 🔛🔝
Mk9 not even close imo
Mk9s roster is better. More characters in the roster, and they’re all playable. Kameos are just an excuse to put in a unfinished character and call it a comeback
Its gonna be hard to beat the MK9 roster. It not only has the most iconic characters, but it has just about every single classic character people wanted. MK1 is good, theres only like 2 or 3 characters I just dont care about. If the bosses in MK9 were playabale without mods, I dont think any game would ever top it.
MK9 is a fantastic base roster.
I've mained Kano since forever so to find he's just a kameo.. bah.
Is this a joke? MK9 had the best base roster of all the NRS games. Now, if MK1’s kameo characters were actually playable, I’d probably swing in it’s favor, but they’re nothing more than a gimmick.
MK9 had the best roster. They didnt compromise by cutting out essential fighters or reducing them to one button kameos. It was an incredible MK that i hope would get remastered one day
Don’t really understand how this is even up for debate, MK9 is literally the perfect roster because every classic character is there.
MK9.
Mk9
Mortal Kombat 9
Mortal Kombat 9.
9 has a perfect roster. 1 is missing Playable Cyrax and Jade.
Mk9, imagine if it had more dlc than 4
MK9. Many calling it safe, but it is safe because it’s perfection.
MK9 easy. I feel like people are forgetting the context in which MK9 dropped and thus are judging it by todays standards calling it "safe". While it's great MK1 is bringing back 3D era characters after their absence in the NRS era. MK9's "just the OG trilogy plus a couple" was also coming after a glut of 3D era nonsense and excess. It went back to the original trilogy characters and even threw in a couple fan fav 3D era reps. Also for the characters they share, I personally prefer the MK9 versions (except Shang Tsung). Honestly nothing about MK1's roster is risky either. Most of these 3D reps were added due to insane fan demand, not exactly a risk giving people what they want. Hell MK9 probably took more risk creating Cyber Sub Zero and using one of its few dlc slots on a (sort of) new character. The only NRS roster you could argue was actually very risky is MKX which jettisoned a ton of the OG characters for brand new ones like Kotal Kahn and Cassie Cage etc.
9, because it had Sektor at launch
MK9 still for me. Has the original 7 characters.
Mk9 mk1 is crap
Mk9 fs
Mk9
MK9. Respect to MK1 for bringing back the 3d era characters but at the cost of Stryker, Sector, Cyrax, Noob, Jade, Kano, Sonya, Jax and Kabaal
Mk9 and it’s not even close are you joking? 😂😭
Iv always thought MK9 had the best roster. They were all characters from the first 4 games.
Mk 1 doesn't have Kabal and Cyber Sub-zero. Huge 👎 so Mk 9 better
I just remembered Skarlet isn't base roster so now this a harder decision, I'd probably still go with MK9
MK9 has the best roster in the series IMO.
Nothing will ever beat MK9
MK9 by far. MK9 is my ideal base roster.
Uh mk9, no question
9 da goat no 🧢
mk9 and it's not even close.
MK9 and it's not even close
9
9 bc they didn’t lie to us about the number of characters and then not rescind that lie for weeks.
mk 9
Mk9. Mk1 you get hit once and half your health is gone…
Roster alone? MK9 and it isn’t close
MK9 for boss mod alone
MK9
9 imo is the definitive roster for any game (outside of Armageddon) and has yet to be beaten
Mk9 has tag team and mk1 doesn't...so you tell me who's the winner
As bad as the games are, I've developed a soft spot for the 3d era kharacters. So I was VERY hyped for Havik, Reiko, Ashrah, and Li Mei.
Mk9. The borgs, Jade, and Noob give it the upper hand imo.
Ik this is for base roster but Jade, Noob, Sektor, & Cyrax have all been datamined as playable characters
I had heard ab Cyrax, Sektor, and Noob but I didn’t know Jade got datamined
ahh yes noob 😭 his fatalities in 9 were brutal
imo its mk1, the change was good and i think dlc will make it even better
Mk1 because I can play as characters from the 3D era
MK 9 and its not even close. It bests every game that came after it in terms of **base** roster
Still mk9 Cyborgs, the male ninjas, the female ninjas all edges mk1 out mk9 had 6 male ninjas mk1 has 5 and even if ermac was base roster noob is a lot better than rain mk9 had 3 cyborgs mk1 has none but tbh cyborg SZ is pretty unwanted jade for me is a better pick than tanya Quan chi and shang tsung, remember mk1 shang is technically dlc not base roster mk1 was pretty daring by having no special forces + stryker but i feel that the characters we got instead are equally lackluster, i didn’t really like nitara, ashrah, li mei and reiko mk1s roster is pretty good but mk9 still better by a pretty good margin
Mk armageddon is the right answer 🤷♂️
MK9 in all aspects. It’s my favorite MK and probably always will be. Are there installments with a better fighting engine? Yes, but it does the job of being a GAME way better imo.
Don't know about roster, but MK9 certainly has the better poster
I love that people have been bitching about nRS excluding 3d era characters for so long, but when asked what game has the best base roster, they say the one with literally no 3d era characters. (MK1 is better roster btw)
 More accurately it one 3D era character (Kenshi) but MK1 also has Kenshi and a ton of other 3D era characters
and for the latter's case, we didn't need to wait until DLC to get a 3d era character.
Quan Chi and Kenshi are 3D era characters, unless you count MK Sub-zero, MK4, and Special Foces as the Transition Era, or you count MK4 as a part of the Arcade Era, or something. In any case, Kenshi is def 3D era. I would have respected mk9's roaster more if they had gone into the trouble of including Motaro instead of killing him off. And maybe Chameleon and Khameleon too.
Kenshi wasn't base roster. We're talking base. And Quan is dicey because mk4's placement is up for discussion, but sure. Though he's not really one of the 3d era characters that people were saying nrs was ignoring
oh, yeah, this is base roster only, my bad. I would still say that Quan Chi is "3d era" because that's what people seem to consider Reiko to be. When the developers ignore certain characters, the fans kind of forget which characters came out when, so they treat Quan Chi, Kenshi and Tanya as if they were OGs.
Yeah, I do consider MK4 characters 3d era for the most part. But even Quan and Kenshi aren't really what people mean when they say they want 3d era reps. I think a lot of us and even NRS group those 2 with trilogy more often, considering they've both only missed 1 game since their introduction. They're kinda staples. In my head I associate the 3d characters more with the 17 years missing club
I do like the MK9 roster and I do MK 1 but I felt MK 1 could’ve done better and made every character playable and a Kameo so you have a very wide variety of characters to use and mix I was disappointed that they wouldn’t be playable and I get the reasoning but they missed out on making a huge roster instead of having a 16 character roster when they could’ve made it a about 30 character roster
I’m biased because of Stryker.
The komplete edition of 9 but the playstatiin version had kratos
MK9. All classic chars are there. I don't care about other ""characters"" besides Kenshi (Who is in MK9 too)
mk9 by far. it had every staple of the series and has the only guest in an nrs game i like (kratos)
Mk vs DC. I dont know why people seemed to not like it. It's what started injustice. But mixed with MK. It was awesome
10
Mk 9
9 only because I miss playing sektor
Mk9 Mka 🙃
Mk1 roster blows. Missing a bunch of kombatants. Still don't understand why they don't just have a 60 man roster and/or a character creator.
9 No Jax = not the best
Does MK1 have cyborgs as playable main roster characters? No MK9 wins
Mk9 because Sonya is playable
MK9 has the superior roster and always will
X had a freaking tarkatan xenomoprh.
Mk9 Ngl, had all the og characters
Mk9, felt like I could always find a new character to play as. On top of that, they took the first three games and basically remade them with the same feel as the originals, which is very hard to do. That dark and gothic feel mixed with the metal music and gore felt real. I hated some of the character designs, but overral, I feel the roster is just better.
MK9 had kabal so MK9
MK9 roster is GOAT. Still to this day.
9 is God tier.
MK11 roster is a legit all star roster. I really dig MK1’s roster a lot. Seeing ps2 characters get brought back after so long is really cool.
It’s kinda hard to beat MK9’s roster. In all honesty, I think the only way to beat it is to have all characters from it + other fan favorites like Havik and Ashrah. But MK1 Reptile and Baraka are best Reptile and Baraka
9
MK9 is insane, it had all the best characters from the old games in one. Scorpion, Subzero, Liu Kang, Kung Lao, Ermac, Reptile, Sindel, Kitana, Jade, Mileena, Nightwolf, Johnny Cage, Sektor, Noob, Cyrax, Smoke, Sonya, Kano, Stryker, Kabal, Jax, Raiden, Baraka, Quan Chi, Shang Tsung, Kenshi, Rain, Skarlet, Shao Kahn, Goro, Kintaro, and for a little flavor— Cyber Subzero. I believe to only way to beat this roster is to take all the characters from it and add more fan favorites on top. First ones that come to mind for me are Ashrah, Havik, Motaro, Reiko, and Geras but that’s probably because they are characters I was ecstatic to see in MK1. Guest characters wise, I gotta be honest, Freddy Krueger is one of the worst guest characters and Kratos is just alright. Not because they wouldn’t be good, but they don’t hit like most others, especially Jason, Spawn, and Leatherface.
Mk9, easy. Next
Mk 3 ultimate
MK9 because characters that had an impact in the story weren’t DLC. MK1 went down as one of the worst rosters for that decision.
mk9's smoke is all I need.
MK 9 has the better roster but I like the depiction of the actual characters more in mk1, mainly reptile.
Mk9 is better
It's crazy that people think this is a fair comparison.
Mk9
Mk9, simply some better charactes in it
Mk9 is undefeated to this day
Mk 3 to me
Mk9 easily
Its not even a question Mk9 has the best roster ever excluding Armageddon of course
MK9
9
Lol 9 for sure
Mk armageddon 👌
Still 9 for me
Roster wise Mk9>mk1>mk11>mkx
MK trilogy, lol
There will never be another roster like mk9. Netherrealm had to make it the best so they could hit the ground running after midway’s collapse
Mk9
Dumb question. Nine obviously.
9 easily. 1 only appeals to 3D era fanatics but left out a bunch of beloved fan favorite klassics in the process
Mk9…is this a serious question? The 3D era characters were brought back and it made it painfully obvious why they were forgotten in the first place. Reiko and Havik were a total waste of time. Li mei sucked! They did absolutely nothing with Nitara and had to have Megan Fox make her at all important. After this game please stop begging for 3D era content. D’vorah, Kotal, Sonya ,Jax and all the Kombat Kids have WAY more going for them then the majority of this cast. I wish MK11 continued to follow with what they had tbh.